Susan Marshall distills pop-rock experience in 'Play/Pause'

If Plato had ever pondered the ideal of pop music, "Play/Pause" might have been it. Susan Marshall's seductive, disturbing world-premiere sextet, stripped bare as her stage, mines the essence of a tradition that defines Western culture in our time. Who can forget the rock concert, the club show, the dance party that literally rocked their world?

Not that "Play/Pause," performed this weekend at the Dance Center of Columbia College, is always blissed out—far from it—despite the onstage presence of three musicians playing David Lang's sometimes raucous, sometimes tender score. The first 10 or 15 minutes in particular are tough going. The merciless lighting, harsh as supermarket fluorescents, flattens the two Susan Marshall & Company dancers onstage, audibly ripping black tape off a roll, sticking it on a big ugly plywood square, then "drawing" on it with a microphone that picks up every thump and scrape.

Still, that unpromising beginning sets up the synesthetic fusion of the senses—of sight and sound, sound and movement, body and instrument, heartbeat and percussion—that defines pop rock. Boundaries, both personal and social, get lost. Distillation highlights the communal delusions of the rock experience, its simultaneous sense of alienation and connection.

Brilliantly designed and lit to create an arc, "Play/Pause" lifts off when Eric Southern's lighting gets darker and more nuanced and the dancers quiet down and interact. Focus is a crucial concept throughout, achieved via the mikes and the glass panes atop mike stands, framing the performers like phone or laptop screens. Focus confers stardom, elevating the humanity of a single individual. But, in one of many paradoxes, the crowd becomes the rock star, the rock star the crowd.

Marshall's minimalist choreography is loose and free, driven by momentum and instinct. A low-flying leap, the dancer hunched over, is followed by a single arm swinging down and forward, then pulled back, over and over, like a pendulum keeping time. Repetition produces rhythm, no matter what the instrument: a drum, a guitar, an arm, breath. Eventually the audience is pulled into the rhythms too, when performer Pete Simpson coaxes us into a group breathing ritual, our communal intake and sighs audible, moving.

"Play/Pause" can be dark. When dancer Ching-I Chang puts tape over the glass framing Luke Miller's face, "sealing" his mouth and eyes, it feels pornographic, hostile. Two sections contrast women's and men's responses to the rock-club atmosphere. First, in classic girl-group style, Ching-I and Kristin Clotfelter mime "don't break my heart." Next, the four men grab their neon-lit mike stands and brandish them like Luke Skywalker's lightsaber.

The short sections of Marshall's piece can feel disjointed, resembling dance on shuffle play. And at times one wonders what is the point of reproducing the rock experience, however distilled. Ultimately, however, Marshall uncovers the complex humanity of an experience sometimes dismissed as crowd-driven hysteria.